Motivational speaker and bestselling author Priya Kumar has a knack of talking to people and telling them stories that inspire them to feel good about their lives even in the worst of circumstances.
'If you go up to an average American or British citizen, and tell them you are a Muslim, they look at you suspiciously. It's not a good feeling,' Saif Ali Khan tells Sonil Dedhia.
'I kept telling Anurag, "I don't care about anything, I don't want any money. Just get the film made".' 'One day I called Anurag and someone else picked up the phone. He said, "Hello, Sir." I responded, "Hello, but who are you and why are you picking up Anurag's phone?" He said, "I am Ranbir Kapoor Sir". And he told me he was doing the film and he was very excited.'
Narendra Modi's mother washed utensils to make a living. Madhusudan Mistry's grandmother, who brought him up, was a vegetable vendor. Mistry's trajectory from poverty to membership of the all powerful Congress Working Committee is moving. the man who has Rahul Gandhi's ear and is all set to take on Narendra Modi in Vadodara, speaks to Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt in a fascinating interview.
Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the New York Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, recalls, with both anguish and elation, the events of the last fortnight after the US President's order banning entry for people from seven countries was put in place.
In his penultimate State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that the economy is improving.
Annet Mahendru -- the half-Indian making waves in The Americans -- on her love for Bollywood, daal-chawal and being a Russian spy.
he has to demonstrate the ability of his government to take a quantum leap, almost tantamount to setting the Ganga on fire, in the next six months, if not in 100 days, if the people were to take seriously the cascade of commitments spewing out of the President's address to both Houses of Parliament on June 9, says B S Raghavan. B S Raghavan suggests five practical propositions through which the Modi government can bring in paradigm changes.
'Counter terrorism does not appear to be good guys fighting the bad ones; it is about people being picked up, detained and charged with crimes they did not commit.'
'I always used to say ignore the trolls and move on and focus on your fans and friends,' Sreenath Sreenivasan tells Rediff.com's Monali Sarkar. 'That was easy for me to say. But now when I say it, I really mean it.'
He keeps a Ganesha idol in his room. His next book will have eight chapters set in Mumbai. He loves India; it's his biggest market. Yet there is one thing that bestselling Jeffrey Archer detests -- it actually drives him nuts! -- about this country.
'Think about this: A widow of a jawan is drawing only Rs 3,500. If OROP is implemented, she will get additional Rs 1,500. These poor girls are young and have no source of income; they are trying their best to just make ends meet. It is the pain of these situations that has driven me to this.' 'We don't want to put pressure on the government -- that's not our intention. We have full faith in our prime minister. We are asking for a meeting with him, and when we get that, we are sure he will not only give us what we are asking for, but 10 per cent extra.' Major General Satbir Singh, who headed the OROP agitation at Jantar Mantar, speaks out.
'Put cricket, first and foremost, at the centre of every decision you take.' 'The bottom line must always be the sport that we love.' Rahul Dravid as eloquent as always in his M A K Pataudi Memorial Lecture.
'Narendra Modi has had very good luck. Firstly, the fall of oil prices. You don't get that very often in your life and you certainly don't get that often when you are in government.' 'Secondly, the fantasy of Indian reforms has led to very strong capital inflows to have made his job much, much easier.' 'You ride the winds in times of fortune and he hasn't done that. At least, not yet.' 'Those winds of fortune which are blowing your way can certainly turn around easily. There are quite a few headwinds coming up. He may well, history will show, have missed the opportunities that existed.'
The kind of people Narendra Modi has chosen, the decisions he has taken and the rail and central budgets suggests that he is treading carefully in New Delhi. There is less of innovation and more of continuity, so far. He is not ready to rock the boat and start from scratch, says Sheela Bhatt.
Monisha Dudaney tells you what the stars predict for the coming months.
'It was only relatively recently that Subhash Kapoor was able to secure the sources in India, Afghanistan and Cambodia, that allowed him to get the really highest level objects, and that helped propel him in recent years up the ranks.'
'We have about Rs 4 lakh crore debt on a state budget of about Rs 1.5 lakh crore.' 'We are in a debt two-and-a-half times our annual budget,' says the banker who would have been Tamil Nadu's finance minister had the DMK won.
It does not apply to anyone who might come to America illegally in the future. It does not grant citizenship, or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive, the President said.
"The poor will not suffer disproportionately due to bouts of sharp inflation, and the middle class will not see its savings eroded," Raghuram Rajan said.
This is the joint statement issued by the ministry of external affairs on the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
Raja Sen hated Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and debates his reasons with Satyajit Chetri, who totally loved it.
'After the 2002 riots when the media and other political parties started blaming Modiji, thousands of people like us -- now, it must be crores of us -- started becoming staunch supporters of Modiji. The more you blamed him the more of our support he gained.' Pramod Singh of Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh is one of Narendra Modi's biggest fans and a member of Modi's India272 Web initiative, spreading the leader's message on social media and the Internet.
'This is not a Sanjay Baru or Natwar Singh type of book. It's not a memoir. It's not a book to reveal conversations, real or imaginary. This is not a book to position myself at the centre of the world.' Jairam Ramesh on his stint as environment minister.
'It is in the interest of both sides that the visit of the US President is seen as being successful. Both sides have invested considerable political capital in it. This rapid exchange of visits and the decisions taken have to be justified, beyond the symbolism, which is no doubt important in itself. This opportunity to impart a fresh momentum to ties should not be missed,' says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
Full text of Rahul Dravid's Pataudi Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.
Read the full transcript of President Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday at the US Capitol in Washington.
